DISTANT GAME ━ charlie weasley

o. out of the hair

(Quick Scottish football crash course: Celtic and Rangers are one of the most competitive footballing rivalries to ever exist, and are both two of Glasgow's football teams. Perhaps the biggest teams in Scotland. The match in which they both play each other is known as one of the rowdiest and atmospheric games in world football and is known as the 'Old Firm' derby.)

Avery Carmichael's room was the second room to the left hand side up the stairs. It was a moderate, box-shaped room that was perfectly Avery. Filled with books, trinkets and decorative plants, her room was an assortment of the colours pale pink and coral and sage and fern. Her bed was situated against the wall in front of her mirror-embellished wardrobe and a small window existed adjacent to both pieces of furniture, draped with a curtain of the colour sage that when removed gave way to the front side of the Carmichael cottage and a crisp view of the Thankerton Bridge and River Clyde. There was a beige cable-knit throw on Avery's baby pink double-bed for nights when it was too warm for a duvet, and the occupied space besides Avery's wardrobe was her desk, a miniature bookshelf hanging off of the wall above and with small boxes and drawers crowding the space around. And in spontaneous spots, there were multiple picture frames illustrating the life of Avery Carmichael's, whether it be the one of eight year old Avery and Jeremiah at Ayr Beach on a sunny summers day, grinning proudly beside a majestic sandcastle or of Avery riding one of the McKinnie's horses (it was grey and his name was George and had practically grown up with Avery - she adored that horse more than any other that they owned), and even more so the picture of Avery sitting happily in her Uncle Douglas's juniper Audi Quattro besides the young man of slender figure and hearty stubbled face, toothy smiles and all.

And there, lying in between the pale duvet with her head propped upon many pillows, slowly sinking more and more into the inadvertent pillow-pile, Avery Carmichael was unconscious from reality and into a fantasy world of her very own. Whether she be dreaming of a land where pancakes exist for breakfast, lunch and dinner or a place where  Severus Snape is facing mortal peril, Avery seemed to be having a good night sleep. Perhaps it was to do with her excellent exam results too, maybe. But then came the knock, and all fantasies were diminished.

The sound of a harsh rapping against fragile window glass had awoken Avery Carmichael from a blissful nights' sleep. The knock was violent - so violent that if whatever was hitting it had hit the window any harder, that the strength of the transparent material was sure to have its properties tested. Nonetheless, there was only one thing that Avery could have guessed had made that noise and could wake her up so abruptly, yet it didn't make sense at seeing an owl other than her own hazel-coloured Oban perched upon her windowsill. And it was growing more and more impatient, and seemed to take great joy in terrorising the poor window.

     "Alright, alright, I'm coming. Try not to break my ruddy window, would you." She huffs grudgingly, yanking her duvet away from her body and sliding her feet out of her bed with much incoordination - so clumsily that she'd bumped her head on her nightstand in doing so. Ouch, she thinks, holding her hand to her head as she got to her bared feet and trudged along the carpet of her bedroom door to her windowsill. As soon as Avery had opened her window and untied the letter from the owl's ankle, it flew away rapidly. "Don't stay for tea, then!" She yells sarcastically after it, but piped down when she noticed a couple of her neighbours peeking out their windows bewilderedly for her yelling after an owl. Whoops.

     Tending back to the letter delivered to her in the precious hours of morning, she noticed it had the Hogwarts seal imprinted on the back, and came to the realisation it'd just be her book list for the upcoming year; her final year at the magical boarding school. A part of her ached at the thought of this, because Hogwarts was her home. In the last 6 years, she'd made friends there, she'd learnt there, she dated guys, she had her heart broken and she'd broken some hearts too. And not to mention: the food at Hogwarts is gorgeous. And now she only has one last year to bask in the luxuries of Hogwarts and deal with the immense stresses of exams that she just knows she'll miss when she moves on.